#1
summer comes when the pears are out as often as the sun.
if it's golden fingers of such sweet laziness reach out and bleach our hair,
we will know.
when we cry from a burnt back with it's red blazing laced throughout our skin,
we'll permit it, because we know it won't bother us for long.
sometimes it will send us icecream carts
and allow us, even if we already have cinnamon buns in our mouths, to hear the bell.
other times we'll get our own icecream,
and the drips and trickles that coat our hands with sugar
will be permitted.
the rabbit will remain on our yard
because braided bracelets will reamin on our wrists.
the blisters will remain on our feet
because the strawberries will remain in the fields.
the chrysalis will become a creature of wings and leave
because she is a sister of summer and they both know it is time.
#2
i'm not alone when i wake up.
i wake up at four and i know the grass keeps growing,
reaching towards
the sky until green will meet blue
and we will be surrounded by open palms of teal that join us
in coaxing the sun to come out.
i waken again at six and i think of the dolls.
the mexican dolls, all four of them, who are sitting and
lingeringly waiting
for the show of our habits that comes when the sun rises.
they wait with me and i fill my head with good things like
butterflies and their serenity.
if i wake up at seven-thirty and it's saturday,
then i will think of the cat. the cat that is not really prowling,
but lazily drifting
throughout the silent floors of others sleep.
he roams and glides but sometimes he sits and grows restless
in waiting for the sun and the breakfast it brings.
when light finally fills the room and i pull the pillow over my head,
the grass will lower it's palms to the soil and allow it's shoulders
to rest
while the sky remains blue and the grass remains green.
the dolls will lean their heads on each other's shoulders
and whisper 'good night' before realizing that night has
slipped by
under the cracks of this old houses floors.
the cat that is out there will drift not through the house
but through dreams, where there are only good things like
catnip and placidity
that enter his mind then smoothly depart on the trail of his whiskers.
if you think you are alone, look further.
#3
i still remember the days in grade three.
i remember my friends scrunched eyebrows as she chose a colour.
i remember our small hands that didn't seem so small
as they clung to the chalk that clung to the sidewalk for only a moment,
before moving on to the cement ahead.
i remember the fairy houses.
the ones found in salt-tipped snow banks or the hollows of elm trees,
where berries and raindrops could knock down our twig fences.
we sometimes left food.
sometimes the food dissapeared.
always we would smile
at the fairies that hid behind painted masks
of squirrels and rabbits.
i remember the days in grade three,
the days that were trickled-honey-sweet.
#4 (in memory of maurice)
the most angelic thoughts come
when eating nectarines in the night kitchen.
howls remain inside and humming is released
as i sit on the swinging chair, remembering max call, "and now,"
the boy falls through pages
as the dirt moistens to soil.
the birds return to nests.
nectarines remain half-eaten on counters
as the chair continues to swing after jumping off.
"and now," is still now without maurice.
#5
blue and yellow strings can be thought of as grass in june.
when weaved through layers of dry earth than wet earth,
for one month
than another,
they will stay strung together.
strings remain etched throughout her backyard,
remembering her toes of three years as they wander.
yet maybe they will slowly un-ravel in december,
falling apart beneath layers of
crisp
white
snow,
gently letting go of eachothers hands till finally sun returns.
#6
the scent of lilac.
a flower laced in wrinkles.
grandma's hand on mine.
#6
the scent of lilac.
a flower laced in wrinkles.
grandma's hand on mine.
#7
all that whispers lies in the field of bur oaks and shady groves.
grass becomes not grass but
withered-whisper-machines
that crackle under our bare feet,
fireworks that explode upon touching the mud-barren toes.
a sun-baked cloud rests on a napkin that rests
on the eight-year-old's palm.
his fingers touch cinnamon that
whispers to whipped cream. mouthfuls of folk fest heaven.
eyes whisper to a strangers eyes.
trees embrace sky as they whisper.
the loudest call melts to a whisper that's soft as cream
in the land of bur oaks and shady groves.
#8
canola, yellow and wondrously-winged
flies through our prairies.
clouds watch over yellow buds.
crooked fences are paint-chipped
and aged dividers of our fields,
land and land
made close like the rushed beehive is to the old tree.
withered branches rest across one another
with their un-hasty gratitude.
prairies soar in their stillness.
#9 (good things)
trickled honey on teal ladders,
possibly singing to the prairie dog that comes.
lowercase t's and chipped trains
that both pull up lawn chairs and sit by the road.
do they sit there only to wave at passing cars?
possibly they're waiting for
raindrops and honeydew
on this hot day.
brown cows that wade into lavender,
swimming only for the scent.
and who could not love discovering the nest in the apple tree?
#10
braided stalks of golden-aged wheat could frame fallen raindrops.
brittlely positioned around wet splash on yellow-lined road,
they could keep company.
crocus and cloud could create kinship.
they'd observe wooden telephone poles together,
one looking down and the other up.
tear would meet august grass.
brittle life upon ever-changing wetness.
#11
lips coated in neon-sweetness.
beety-red of the train car that must've copied our tomato.
greatness stained forever on grandma's white tablecloth.
it makes me love it so much more.
#12
i think the sky is weeping for our prairies.
moving past the hay bales below she wishes she could stay,
mesmerizing bored street signs with new motion.
#13
melancholy is for past summers,
summers that drifted past open windows and disappeared beneath bare feet.
melancholy is for the grey sky.
it is for the looking back and smiling, remembering your feet's course
and the touch of your finger's upon old objects.
like an un-ripe peach instead of honey,
which preserves itself for as long as forever lasts. this is where year '11 remains.
summers made of honey rest at the tip of my tongue,
yet memory-sculpted days are here instead.
i'll wait for the day when sun melts cameras, capsules to ancient wonderings.
till then i'll keep august in my warm-honey-heart.
#14
an ode to white, to the simple color.
the color that lies across old wooden tables and rests between walls of peach then teal.
maybe it's more of a greeting, a small thank you for it's purpose,
both on the moon and here.
for the white that comes in curtains,
the one that draws eyes to blue veins that wind and wrap around peachy-pink skin;
for the white that strains sun rays,
bringing them to the floor of my room then creeping up walls, all the while allowing copper to shine;
and for the white that rests patiently on empty and desperate pages or dust covered carpets;
thanks.
#15
fingertips dusted in sugar was august's last kiss.
faded yellow and red surrounded us,
a keepsake in our minds for approaching days of crackled leaves and cold winds.
clouds framed it all, and the loud music and bustle was only a side note,
simply unimportant when there's cotton candy and an occasional breeze.
then the day comes to a close and our fingertips remember it all.